A BUILDING FALLS: THE OVERVIEW; Demolition-Site Collapse Buries 5, Including Baby; All Are Recovered Alive

By ROBERT D. McFADDEN

Published: July 15, 2005

A supermarket under demolition on the Upper West Side of Manhattan collapsed yesterday morning in a thunder of bricks, concrete and scaffolding timbers that engulfed five people, one of them a 7-month-old baby in a stroller, and plunged a neighborhood into a storm of screams, sirens and frantic rescues.

No one was killed, but 10 people, including five firefighters, were hurt in the collapse of the former Gristede's market on Broadway near West 100th Street at 9:23 a.m., and in the search and rescue as dozens of passers-by, demolition workers and firefighters plunged into the jagged pile of rubble.

Witnesses told of a woman buried to the waist and screaming, ''My baby! My baby!'' and of glimpses of the stroller under debris and the baby turning blue, of an arm sticking out somewhere, of a man with broken arms and legs covered by rubble, and of two victims trapped in a pocket under a concrete slab.

In a spontaneous reaction, a dozen people in nearby shops or on Broadway -- heading for work or out for that first cup of coffee -- joined 20 demolition workers and rushed into the rubble. They formed a bucket brigade and began digging and pulling, passing chunks of brick, wood and debris from one to another, working their way toward the shrieking woman and other cries for help.

''It was amazing to see the community come together,'' Oren Adler, 34, a financial adviser, who leaped into the effort several minutes before the first firefighters arrived. ''The Language Center, the smoke shop -- people just threw down whatever they had and pitched in,'' he said.

Within 15 minutes, with emergency crews swarming to the scene and firefighters clawing and cutting the rubble with crowbars and radial saws, the four adults and the baby had all been pulled out and rushed to emergency rooms -- the baby and two women to St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center and the two men to Harlem Hospital Center. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said the baby was expected to survive, that none of the injuries were life-threatening and that all five were in stable condition.

A paramedic at St. Luke's, Jesus Palacios, said the baby, 7-month-old Abigail Lurensky, was probably buried for five to six minutes and was not bleeding.

She may have been saved by her two-baby stroller, which enclosed her like a cocoon, he said.

The infant's nanny, Brunilda Tirado, 56 -- the one who had shouted, ''My baby!'' in the rubble -- had a broken arm and leg, her family reported.

Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta said the collapse might have been deadly. ''This is, of course, a very unfortunate incident, but it could have been much worse,'' he said at a noon news conference near the site, which is on the west side of Broadway. He said that all the construction workers had been accounted for and that only five of the scores of firefighters at the scene had been slightly injured.

The cause was under investigation by the city Buildings Department, but witnesses and city officials said a heavy piece of demolition equipment on the roof of the one-story building may have been a factor. The city ordered the demolition work halted at the site, which was being cleared for a controversial 31-story residential tower whose proposed size has caused neighborhood protest rallies.

The company demolishing the supermarket, the Bronx-based Safeway Environmental Corporation, was issued three violations by the city's Department of Buildings yesterday -- summonses for operating an unsafe demolition, for failing to remove mechanical equipment, and for using ''mechanical equipment contrary to permit'' -- said Ilyse Fink, a department spokeswoman.

Ms. Fink said Safeway had a permit to use a mini-excavator, a piece of digging equipment used by some contractors in confined spaces, but instead may have hoisted a heavier piece of equipment -- it looked like a small white backhoe -- onto the roof with a crane. She said that Safeway had not removed the heating and cooling systems from the roof and that the added weight might have been too much for the roof.

Ms. Fink also said her department would look into a report that a roof beam was structurally unsound.

The apartment tower planned for the site was being developed by a company that is emerging as a major member of New York real estate circles, the Extell Corporation. Safeway issued no comment, but Extell pledged to cooperate with the city investigation. ''At this point, our sole concern is the safety of all concerned, especially those who were reported injured,'' Extell's statement said.

Commissioner Scoppetta said that demolition of the supermarket started about six weeks ago, and that the one-story building had been reduced to a virtual shell of four walls and a roof.

A demolition worker, Andre Wilson, 45, of Brooklyn, said he removed the front display windows about 9 a.m., shortly before the collapse, and noticed something unusual. ''The windows came out too easy,'' he said. ''Windows aren't supposed to come out too easy. When the foundation of a building is kind of weak, things tend to come loose much easier.''

A woman who said she was too distraught to give her name described seeing the collapse from her apartment across Broadway. She said she saw the heavy piece of machinery on the roof, with its driver, and that both suddenly disappeared.

''He went right down, straight down with the machine,'' she said. ''As soon as that happened, the rest just imploded.''

Jeff Rosenthal, 41, an importer who recently moved to the neighborhood, was walking into a deli next door when his cellphone rang at 9:23 a.m., and the building collapsed. ''It sounded like an earthquake -- it just kept falling,'' Mr. Rosenthal said.

The collapse of the building's front wall also brought down most of the scaffolding that had been erected over the sidewalk to protect pedestrians, and witnesses said it was mostly the timbers of the scaffolding that fell on the victims, some of whom had been standing at a bus stop. The bus shelter was demolished by the collapse.

As a cloud of plaster dust and dirt rose into the air, Mr. Adler, Mr. Rosenthal and about a dozen others passing the site quickly formed a volunteer rescue team and, with the demolition workers, began clawing at the debris and reached Ms. Tirado and then little Abigail, daughter of Heidi and Steven Lurensky of West 89th Street.

The digging and searching continued for almost two hours, until about 11:30, when city officials concluded that no one else was trapped in the debris. Then, Sanitation Department bulldozers moved in and cleared heaps of corrugated metal, plaster, brick and chunks of timber from the sidewalk.

Transit officials halted service on the Nos. 1, 2 and 3 subway lines running under Broadway for more than an hour. After service was restored, trains were directed to limit their speeds to 5 miles an hour under the site for the rest of the day to avoid excessive vibrations.

Joseph F. Bruno, director of the Office of Emergency Management, said Con Edison had determined that no electrical lines or gas mains in the area were affected. City environmental officials said water mains were not affected, as well. About 35 people evacuated from the building next door were allowed to return to their apartments.

The Buildings Department also directed Safeway to stop work at another site, at 2628 Broadway, near 99th Street, where Extell plans another high-rise, Ms. Fink said.

Photos: The collapse at Broadway and 100th Street sent bricks and beams and scaffolding falling onto pedestrians. Passers-by and neighbors helped firefighters clear the debris. (Photo by Rebecca Letz for The New York Times); (Photo by Angel Franco/The New York Times)(pg. B1); Pitching in at the rescue and cleanup effort at the demolition site were police emergency workers, firefighters, police rescue dogs, and parks and sanitation workers. (Photo by Angel Franco/The New York Times); At left, the building about 15 minutes before the collapse, and at right, only moments after it gave way. City officials have said a piece of machinery on the roof may have been heavier than the roof could support. (Photographs by Nicholas Danilevsky)(pg. B5)